“Once a family selflessly consents to organ donation on behalf of their loved one, upwards of a hundred people are initially involved for each organ donor and transplant recipient.”

Katie Welsh, Canada’s first pediatric heart-transplant recipient in 1987, was one of the 28 people to receive a new heart last year when she underwent her second heart transplant at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.

“I am so grateful for the generosity of not one, but two families who have had the strength to say yes to organ donation in the midst of tragedy,” she said. “I am a mom, wife, daughter, sister and friend because of them.”

More than 1.35 million people in B.C. are registered to be an organ donor. As of Jan. 1, 669 people across the province are waiting for a transplant.